Made Here Now to deliver message on international stage

By Alison Grange

Made Here Now is getting the chance to deliver its message on an international stage with the project's founder Peter Marsh invited to give main speeches at two prestigious conferences in Brazil and South Africa.

Among other topics he will discuss the way Made Here Now is informing the younger generation in Britain about industry via the Internet and social media.

The first of the two international events takes place on June 8 in São Paulo where Peter will give the main address at a seminar on the future of manufacturing organised by the Brazilian National Confederation of Industry, in association with the Institute of Economics of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

In the second event, taking place near Johannesburg on June 27/28, Peter will discuss his ideas on the "new industrial revolution" as his contribution to the Manufacturing Indaba conference, an annual forum for industry drawn from across the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

Peter said: "I'm very pleased to get the chance to talk about new patterns in industrial change across the world and what companies and governments can do to position themselves to make the most of the opportunities.

"One of the challenges faced by manufacturing businesses is to recruit talented young people to help capitalise on the changes ahead. I will discuss in my talks some aspects to the way Made Here Now is approaching this effort in Britain.

"It will be very interesting to talk about Made Here Now with business leaders and government officials in Brazil and countries in southern Africa as it could be that some of these nations are keen to establish projects similar to what we are getting off the ground in the UK," he added.

The São Paulo event is being organised as part of a project called “Industry 2027 and Disruptive Innovations: Risks and Opportunities for Brazil”. Companies to be represented at the meeting include the big Brazilian aircraft group Embraer; Natura, Brazil's biggest maker of cosmetics which is expanding globally and multinationals including Microsoft and Samsung.

A senior representative of Brazil's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation is also giving a speech at the event in which one of the academic partners is the economics department of Campinas State University.

The goal of the project is to come up with a series of proposals to help Brazil prepare for new forms of industry based around fast developing technologies such as digitalisation, robotics, synthetic biotechnology and new materials.

As part of his contribution Peter has prepared a 12,000 word paper likely to be published soon on the new opportunities for industry and their relevance to Brazil.

The Manufacturing Indaba conference is supported by the South African government and brings together officials from companies with large investments in Africa including Nissan, General Electric and Nampak, the South African packaging producer.

Part of the basis for this event – as is also the case for the Brazilian project – is to help build awareness of current developments in industry so as to make manufacturing in its different forms a more attractive career choice for young people.